Chris Tune's Blog

Online Marketing is very interesting. There is an entire cottage industry of persons working in marketing and working entirely online. The infrastructure around this is getting more robust all the time. There are content curation and provisioning companies, and many major long standing vendors offer affiliate channels to encourage web creators to post affiliate linked ads on their sites. Although the conventional "purchase ad, and place online" model appears to reign supreme, there is this substantial, though smaller independent, third party marketplace where content creation, marketing and product curation and hosting is operating on a different basis.

So it is fairly official: I am playing bone as much as is humanly possible, while also training and improving my computing skills (these devices seem to be with us for the long run...). So, it would also make sense for me to post here more often. I just got off a weekend out of town gig and am back in Van Nuys practicing, taking calls and cleaning up my kit (bones, clothes, mute bag) Will play a rehearsal tonight and a few this week, though Thanksgiving will interrupt and therefore this week will likely be light.

I seem to be continuing to practice and practice. One thing this is showing me, is that I need to continue to do this to improve as a jazz player....an improviser. I am often simply in the other room with a boombox and some Aebersolds.. ..when not cleaning the horn or running through basic chop "calisthenics". Otherwise, I will be playing something written, such as Rochut, or various recital style music....I have a bit of a collection of trombone recital type music.... Or.... I could be trying out some kind of "stunt".... Stunt stuff would be going over and playing and practicing something you would not normally think a bone player would do. Recent examples are: Circular breathing...more and more intricate efforts at polishing this activity. Using the Yamaha practice mute to create an electronic instrument similar to an electric guitar (solid body type). This is demonstrated by Italian trombonist Nicola Ferro : Or.... Learning the "Marie" trumpet solo

I am now taking everything I can in trombone land. I am trying to get the word out that I am the darndest, super-cool, freelancer trombone player you will ever have in your group...(hear that, contractors?). Have extensive experience in Top 40 band/ R&B...Jazz groups large and small....orchestras...chamber music (e.g. brass quintet) church music, theater work onstage and in the pit, and recordings. I am in the Local 47 directory (will be in 2010 book), and can be reached at (818) 309-8804 or (818) 763-9397 I come in from the Van Nuys area, so I'm centrally located for most LA based work. I also enjoy doing work with many of my longstanding friends from Orange County. So, I really get around this great big city. PICS COMING! So I am doing quite a lot of playing. Keeping my Union dues up, too! [above is the racked equipment used in a festival here in town... also, you can see a big band setting up in Simi Valley, and nearby, and the thing we all like--applause...well, an &qu

The music business can be pretty exasperating...perhaps Hunter S. Thompson had it right: The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs . There's also a negative side. Be prepared to laugh if you decide to be a musician...it will be a better survival tool than the most powerful military hardware...and try not to be too much of a "good man"... So that brings me to last nite's gig..it was great. I played with a great leader and band and his full troop of Rat Pack look alikes. We had Dean, Sammy and even Susan who is perhaps the most remarkeable Marilyn Monroe look alike in the world. So, even though we had to do the somewhat corny "I Want to be Loved By You" and the other Monroe tunes, which are naturally a bit spoofy (it is important to note that the audience really gets a laugh out of this part of the show, as some poor schmoe gets his temperature raised by "M

Well, the more things change, well...the more they change! I no longer work as controller for Western Studio Services...there is probably not a lot to be gained by going over that...it was a very, very stressful job, so things are better that way, for sure. That situation forced a coming to grips with the mortgage loan. That means selling Alcove Ave and taking the remaining equity out, waiting until the FICO improves and then re-entering the San Fernando Valley real estate market... So now (as of mid 2009) the Tunes have moved to Van Nuys, into a smaller (1230 sq ft as opposed to 1640 sq ft) 3 bd home. This one has a pool, which is unusual for us Tunes. Nice garage...have to set up the packed stuff better to allow for a shop and so forth. So in 2011 will be looking for a home in the valley. I'm thinking of going for land, and building to suit added size and rooms onto an existing structure. I find I really like carpentry, masonry, electrical, all that stuff. Thing to do, thou